Fake news vs Reality

Fake news : Tenerife is becoming too small to continue building.

Facts : Tenerife has more than enough residential building land to immediately address the current housing crisis!

With the claim made by some groups that the lands of the Canary Islands are being plundered by foreign investors, creating a shortage for the inhabitants of the island, I delved into the statistics and figures to see to what extent this claim can be confirmed.

My conclusion: this statement is completely FAKE! In fact. What I have read and discovered is even stronger than I would have suspected.

Here are my findings and opinion on this.

Let's start with the statement that is correct. There is indeed a shortage of housing in the Canary Islands. That is indeed correct. Is that due to a shortage of building land?

No, on the contrary: there is more than enough reason to immediately tackle the current housing crisis.

--> Currently, there are 22,000 hectares of vacant urban and arable land on the islands. Yes, you read that right. To be exact: 22,001.9 hectares.

That is equivalent to 30,815 football fields of 105 metres long and 68 metres wide . And these slightly more than 22,000 hectares consist on the one hand of 7,658.6 hectares of urban land . This is land that is included as such in the municipal plans and already has basic facilities such as water, sewerage or electricity. This can be used immediately .

--> In addition, 14,343.3 hectares of land are earmarked for development. These are lands that are halfway between rural and urban land, which are available if the development and growth of the location require it, but which are still waiting for the provisions to obtain the status of buildable land.

How come there is so much building land available ?

To better understand the situation, I will briefly explain the famous article 221 of the law. Article 221 of the law (reclassification of building land to agricultural land)

This article of law allows Canarian municipalities to reclassify building plots back to the status of natural or agricultural land if nothing has been done with the building plots for years .

But to date and after all these years, no local government in the Canary Islands has used article 221 of the Land Law. You read that right…the Canary Islands municipalities have had the opportunity to convert 14,343 hectares of undeveloped land into natural and agricultural land all these years… and not one municipality has used this article. Nor have the ecological administrators who have sat in some municipalities.

And who can understand: after the demonstrations of April 20th last, where arguments were made about the alleged plundering of the Canary Islands' lands, some municipal councils have declared themselves champions of sustainability and have joined the fight against the "so-called"

plundering of the island. And this with a situation that… they themselves have caused by years of letting the alleged article 221 lie under the dust.

The regional map is now what it is. The figures and statistics on this provide irrefutable proof that the alleged scarcity and plundering of building land is complete nonsense . On the contrary, the Canary Islands currently (May 2024) contain 22,000 undeveloped hectares ! Does this mean that there are 22,000 hectares to build houses? No. But there is certainly more than enough land to meet the very large and growing demand for housing. The first estimate of the Canary Islands Government is that there are 6,600.6 hectares available for housing construction, the equivalent of 9,244 football fields ! If you provide the totality of 6,600 hectares with streets, squares and parks, you can build 112,200 detached houses in the short term. While the remaining 15,400 hectares are in the process of becoming ready for construction and can then be used to continue building.

In my previous blog ( https://www.tenerifeonline.be/post/turistafobie ) I already indicated that three times as many houses need to be built each year in the Canary Islands than now to start tackling the serious housing shortage in the region. Only between 2,500 and 3,000 houses are built each year in all of the Canary Islands. Or rather: construction is starting, since an average of two years elapse between the start of construction and the launch of the building on the market.

And this after a prior waiting period of several years to obtain the building permit!

Where the National Bank of Spain estimates the number of homes that need to be built annually at 11,000 homes. This means that in the next ten years, between now and 2033, the supply needs to grow by 110,000 homes!!

The real cause

And here we come to the real cause of the housing shortage in the Canary Islands. The governments and organizations have underestimated the housing needs of the population. They have never encouraged housing construction (public and private), and never stimulated it with any incentive. As a result, there is now an acute housing shortage...

In short, it is high time to tackle the problem of which the Canary Islands are victims at the root, instead of sweeping our own responsibility under the carpet and making empty accusations about plundering by tourism. And it is indeed a gigantic task, which also requires close cooperation between the public and private sectors, between government institutions on the one hand, and development and construction companies on the other.

There is more than enough supply to build affordable residential homes for the local population and residents of the Canary Islands. If the rule of “Residente Canaria” is applied, just like with travel, where the resident of the Canary Islands can fly up to 75% cheaper, then here too affordable homes can be offered for the residents who work and live there. And the European legislation on housing policy (European directive on affordable housing for all) will have no problem with that.

The proof is there, the numbers confirm it. The Canary Islands have more than enough building land to completely eliminate the housing crisis.

Now we just need to pull together, roll up our sleeves and get started.

Jean Martin Vandenhoeck